Provable Benefits of Complex Parameterizations for Structured State Space Models

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ran-Milo, Yuval, Lumbroso, Eden, Cohen-Karlik, Edo, Giryes, Raja, Globerson, Amir, Cohen, Nadav
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866915000371642368
author Ran-Milo, Yuval
Lumbroso, Eden
Cohen-Karlik, Edo
Giryes, Raja
Globerson, Amir
Cohen, Nadav
author_facet Ran-Milo, Yuval
Lumbroso, Eden
Cohen-Karlik, Edo
Giryes, Raja
Globerson, Amir
Cohen, Nadav
contents Structured state space models (SSMs), the core engine behind prominent neural networks such as S4 and Mamba, are linear dynamical systems adhering to a specified structure, most notably diagonal. In contrast to typical neural network modules, whose parameterizations are real, SSMs often use complex parameterizations. Theoretically explaining the benefits of complex parameterizations for SSMs is an open problem. The current paper takes a step towards its resolution, by establishing formal gaps between real and complex diagonal SSMs. Firstly, we prove that while a moderate dimension suffices in order for a complex SSM to express all mappings of a real SSM, a much higher dimension is needed for a real SSM to express mappings of a complex SSM. Secondly, we prove that even if the dimension of a real SSM is high enough to express a given mapping, typically, doing so requires the parameters of the real SSM to hold exponentially large values, which cannot be learned in practice. In contrast, a complex SSM can express any given mapping with moderate parameter values. Experiments corroborate our theory, and suggest a potential extension of the theory that accounts for selectivity, a new architectural feature yielding state of the art performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_14067
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Provable Benefits of Complex Parameterizations for Structured State Space Models
Ran-Milo, Yuval
Lumbroso, Eden
Cohen-Karlik, Edo
Giryes, Raja
Globerson, Amir
Cohen, Nadav
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Structured state space models (SSMs), the core engine behind prominent neural networks such as S4 and Mamba, are linear dynamical systems adhering to a specified structure, most notably diagonal. In contrast to typical neural network modules, whose parameterizations are real, SSMs often use complex parameterizations. Theoretically explaining the benefits of complex parameterizations for SSMs is an open problem. The current paper takes a step towards its resolution, by establishing formal gaps between real and complex diagonal SSMs. Firstly, we prove that while a moderate dimension suffices in order for a complex SSM to express all mappings of a real SSM, a much higher dimension is needed for a real SSM to express mappings of a complex SSM. Secondly, we prove that even if the dimension of a real SSM is high enough to express a given mapping, typically, doing so requires the parameters of the real SSM to hold exponentially large values, which cannot be learned in practice. In contrast, a complex SSM can express any given mapping with moderate parameter values. Experiments corroborate our theory, and suggest a potential extension of the theory that accounts for selectivity, a new architectural feature yielding state of the art performance.
title Provable Benefits of Complex Parameterizations for Structured State Space Models
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.14067